So I met my online friend in person
by RyanHun
Summary: Percy Jackson, your average teenage boy grew up with video games as his escape from the world, and when he was 19 he moved out of his moms house into an apartment. Since then he has been playing a game with one person in particular, and their dreams of meeting each other in person suddenly became a reality.
1. Chapter 1

Percy

Look, I didn't want to be a gamer. I always wanted to be one of the cool kids at school that got to sit with a huge group of friends, and everyone knew who I was. Sadly, that's not how that happened. It really sucks not being able to just decide to go out and be with people that you can call friends whenever you want, but I guess it isn't so bad when the friends you do have are absolute.

It all started when I was about 10 years old. My mom and I lived in a really small apartment in the Upper East Side with a step dad that wasn't the best. I never really wanted to leave my room because I knew as soon as I did I would have to deal with Gabe, so when my mom got enough money, from working her small job at a candy shop, she bought me a nice computer that I could play almost any game on. As soon as I started to play them I was instantly sucked in and made a bunch of new friends in the online scene.

Over the years I played a bunch of different games, and once my mom and I moved out of that apartment, and I could actually leave my room without being attacked, I kind of stopped playing as much. I moved out of my mom's house when I was 19 and have been living in my own apartment working at an office. It wasn't the best jobs by any means, but it paid enough to live and enjoy a few of the things that I did.

Every once in a while though I would get on to play, and about two years ago I started to play a new game that had recently gotten really popular. This is how I met the player named _WiseG93_. We met one day online because one of the other people I played with invited them into our party because we needed an extra person. We all used Skype to talk to each other while we played, but they didn't. They always said they didn't have a working mic, and I guess for some reason I believed them.

The only problem when you are a gamer is that you never actually get to meet your friends, because odds are you live on opposite sides of the country, and sometimes even opposite sides of the world. Naturally, you always joke about meeting each other. Well, as time went on me and this _WiseG93_ became pretty good friends, and then one spring break these jokes actually became a reality.

"

Me: It would be pretty cool tho if we could actually meet each other over spring break

WiseG93: Actually, we might be able to. I'm going to New York for a semester for an internship, and I could talk to my parents about purchasing my plane tickets a week early and we could spend that week hanging out.

Me: Wait that thing is in New York? As in the city? Why didn't you say that before! You totally need to come out now. I've waited so long to actually meet someone in person that I met online. I think it'd be like the coolest thing.

WiseG93: I did tell you. I'll call my dad really quick now and talk to him about it

"

After that conversation I got another message from them and we confirmed plans and such. They were going to arrive in JFK International and take a taxi up to my apartment and I'd pay for it there. Well, at least I planned to pay for it, but they refused to let me.

I spent probably three days before they arrived cleaning my apartment and making sure that it wasn't a complete mess. I figured that it probably didn't matter that much, but I might as well. I always hoped that there was still a chance I might one day bring a girl home, and it might as well be clean. I didn't even know how it got messy in the first place, to be honest; things just kind of ended up on the floor, and the wall, and everywhere else. It was really weird.

The day that _WiseG93_ was supposed to arrive I spent the entire morning pretty much just looking over a bunch of different things that I figured would probably be enjoyable to talk about. The basic plan for the week was to just hang out and play games. We were probably going to go out to dinner at a nice restaurant one night just to experience it, but that was about it.

I looked up at the clock. _Three o'cl_ock,I thought, _they should be here any time._ Their plane wasn't delayed at all, and as far as I could tell it had landed almost an hour ago. _Assuming that it took 45 minutes to get here _–

That was as far as I got with that thought. There was a knocking on the door, and all of a sudden I got really nervous. For all I knew I was going to open the door and the stereotypical gamer was going to be standing there. _Or a murderer. _Not that there was a problem with that, the gamer at least. Not the murderer. Murderer would be bad.

I walked over to the door, and straightened my shirt before opening it. After I did I had pretty much nothing to say. I think what came out of my mouth sounded something like "Uhhbuhh". She was staring at me, probably because I was doing the same only I looked like an idiot probably. She had long blonde hair that was up in a ponytail, and grey eyes. She looked to be about the same age that I was, and was probably a few inches shorter than me.

"Well hello there Mr. Jackson. I hope I didn't scare you." She smiled at me, and it was around then that I realized she knew what she was doing and was making fun of me. I wanted to by angry at her for not really saying anything about it, but I was more excited over the fact that I was finally meeting someone from online in person.

"Uhm. No. Yeah. Um. Come in?"


	2. Chapter 2

Percy

She walked into the apartment looking around, and I wasn't sure if she was quite aware of how on edge I was. For starters it was a girl that was walking in; not the exact person I expected to be sleeping in my apartment for the next week. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with it, it just would have been nice to have had a warning. If I had known, for instance, I could have actually cleaned rather than stuffing everything under the bed and the sofa. Hopefully she won't notice. Right?

"So…Percy. This is your apartment?" I looked at her not really sure what to say. Is it my apartment? I'd hope so. Otherwise we have bigger issues than her being a girl. Although. That's not really an issue.

"Uh yeah." I looked over at her, and for the first time actually paid attention to how she looked. Her blond hair was a little windswept as if the taxi window had been open the entire way here, and her eyes were a deep grey that almost seemed to not even be real. Other than that I swear I didn't notice anything else about her, except those things. I promise. "You can just put your stuff on the table there if you want, and we can set your laptop up on the WIFI password. After that I don't really care what we do, although it would be nice to actually know your name. For some reason you always left that out of the conversation, and I might know why now."

She looked at me, and flashed her teeth in what I could only assume was a rare smile. She seemed like one of those people that didn't smile that much, but when she did she actually meant it, and it was one of the best things she could give a person. "I guess you could say I did it on purpose." The grin didn't leave her face, and even when she turned around to open her backpack I assumed it was still there.

"Okay then. Would you like to tell me what it is then?"

She turned around again, this time with her laptop in her hand, and the smile still had not left her face. "Annabeth" she said, "Annabeth Chase." The way she said it, all drawn out and making it flow off of the tongue made me wish I had a name that flowed so easily together.

"Well then, Annabeth Chase, let's get your WIFI password set up, and then maybe we can order some pizza or something."

At around 6 we finally had her laptop set up after over an hour of trying to figure out the password; it would have taken even longer if not for her saying something after a while.

"Here. Just let me see it" she said. I handed her back her laptop and threw my hands into the air. "It should only take a sec."

After about 30 seconds she had the computer hooked up to the WIFI and I was thoroughly confused. "Wait. What did you just do?"

"I used my most _basic _knowledge of computers to get around the password for your WIFI and just hack into it that way." I stared at her like I had just seen a monster from some old Greek Mythology story, and she just laughed.

"You're mocking me!" I exclaimed, "That's not even _close_ to being okay." And yet, I was still laughing. Just as much, if not more than she was. "Okay. Well if you could have done that the entire time then we just wasted about an hour of our ever so precious time, so let's just order a pizza and kick back and play a bit." No matter how many times I said it, it would always seem so much weirder than saying it to a guy. I looked at her for a second before I spoke. "I don't think I'll ever be able to get over the fact that you are a girl. Like. Don't get me wrong it's really cool and all, but it is just weird. I mean, all that time that we were playing, I always thought that you were a dude, and now knowing that aren't is just weird."

"Yeah. Sorry. People aren't usually accepting of 'girl gamers' so it was just easier to not really identify at all. I am sorry though, really. If it is too weird for you I can go. I can understand that it might be weird having a girl jus–"

"NO! I mean… No it's fine. A little weird yeah, but no big deal or anything." I walked over to the other side of the room to grab my phone and looked up the number for the pizza place down the street. "You want to go to the pizza place? Or just have them deliver? It doesn't really matter to me either way works."

"We can just have it delivered if that's fine. I don't really feel like moving around that much after my flight. I was sitting in between this lady that would not give up her armrest and this fat guy that kept falling asleep… Anyways. Get whatever you want on the Pizza, I'm not really picky."

"I was just going to get cheese if that's fine. I've never really been a fan of pizza with a bunch of stuff on it."

"Yeah that sounds good. How great is this pizza place?"

"Probably the best I've ever had." We both laughed, and I ordered the pizza. After about 20 minutes it finally got here, and we pretty much devoured it. And it wasn't even like I ate most of it; she had a lot. Don't get me wrong, that's not a bad thing. I just thought that it was really funny.

After eating the pizza (which come on. it didn't really take that long regardless of whether or not it was a large) we actually decided to start playing games, and to be honest, it was a lot of fun. More fun than I thought that it would be, actually. It was weird, really, after all the time that I had known her online, being here in person was actually something else entirely. Being able to put a face to what would have been words behind a keyboard, but what was now a face and a laugh whenever I died for something stupid.

It was around 2 AM that we actually realized how long we had been playing. "So," she said with a yawn barely escaping, "I'd be totally okay with going to sleep and picking this back up tomorrow."

"And I would totally not be opposed, because I was definitely not awake at 7 this morning cleaning the apartment." It was right about then that I realized we hadn't even discussed the sleeping arrangements. Well, we had, but it was before I knew that she was a he. "So, um. You can sleep in my bed if you want, and I can just crash on the couch."

"What? No! We said before that I would sleep on the couch. I couldn't make you give up your bed for me."

"No, it's fine, really. I've probably slept on this couch as many times as my bed anyways." It wasn't a lie, not really. I had slept on it a lot before, but not _that _much.

"If you really don't mind, then I guess I couldn't say no. But not for the whole week. Just tonight."

"Hah. We'll see." We moved her bags into my room (which we still hadn't done because we had been so busy playing) and I took out the few things I would want, and I also grabbed a blanket out of my closet. "Goodnight, Miss Chase." She smiled at me, and the door closed between us.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Sorry for not getting this out earlier. I planned to have the whole thing done by the time BoO came out, but I got busy, and then it came out. It should be done in a few more chapters, although how long I'm not sure. Thanks!

Percy

It was around about 6 AM that she woke me up. "What the _hell_ is going on?" All I could hear were cabinets slamming and pans being bashed around.

"Morning! I thought I would make some breakfast. Want some?" She looked at me all innocent-like, so that I couldn't tell if she was serious or not. For starters, who wakes up at 6 AM to make breakfast, and who does that at someone else's house? How did she even know where the stuff was!?

"Um. You do realize that we only got like four hours of sleep…right? I don't know about you, but I'm rather fond of the idea of more."

"Yeah. I've always been a morning person. So you want breakfast? I'm going to make some eggs." For a second I thought about just turning over and going to sleep, but then I thought the whole reason she was here was so we could spend time together. _It's still hard to believe she is a _she. _I never would have guessed. _

"Okay. I'll tell you what. I'll eat breakfast with you now IF you let me buy you dinner tonight. I know a really good place a couple blocks away, and we could totally just walk over or get a cab or something."

"That sounds reasonable. But what _kind _of restaurant. I've always been a fan of sushi." I just kind of looked at her like I didn't know what to say. Of all the things… sushi.

"You know. That's actually the only thing I _won't_ eat."

"Really? Why? I understand people not eating meat because they don't like the way it is processed or whatever…but sushi is about as fresh as it gets.

"Well that's part of it right there. You are literally eating. Raw. Fish. It's gross. And it's fish. They can't do anything to defend themselves. People just go out and get them. It's kind of different with other meat because they are grown to be killed. Although when I say that it sounds even worse. Maybe I should just go vegan."

"Stop. Please. You sound like my friend Piper. She never stops talking about this cow farm she went by with her dad and ruined her meat experience or something like that. Okay. No sushi then. What kind of restaurant?"

"It's pretty nice. They have steak. And stuff."

"Okay… that barely answers my question… But okay. Deal. I cook you breakfast you buy me dinner. Deal?"

"Deal." And we shook on it.

"OH YOU LITTLE PIECE OF SHIT. THIS IS YOUR FAULT."

"_MY _FAULT? YOU ARE THE ONE THAT MADE ME COME WITH YOU"

"DON'T BLAME THIS ONE ON ME. YOU ARE THE ONE THAT THOUGHT OF IT IN THE FIRST PLACE."

And so what if I had thought of it? She made me do it. That was how most of our conversations ended up going in the hours that we played that day. Constant reminders that we were both actually right there, and that we could see each other. Every time I yelled at her, though, it was different than before. Now I could actually see her face after I did and I could see that sometimes it did actually hurt, yelling at her. That's the sucky part of online communication. You never know when you go too far, or if you are actually hurting someone. Thankfully that only happened a few times. The rest was us just yelling at each other because we died. Or because we stole each other's kills. That was common too.

"Alright, Mr. Jackson, it's 4 o'clock. Where are we going for dinner and how long is it going to take me to get ready?"

"Um. Did you bring, like, nice clothes? Cause we should probably wear those."

"I thought you said it was just a nice restaurant right around the corner!"

"Well… it is. But it is also really fancy, and you don't get let in unless you look nice. Or at least that's what they told me the last time I tried to go."

"This wasn't part of the deal!"

"Of course it was. You agreed to let me buy you dinner. Now go get ready, wear something nice, or I'll have to buy you a dress too."

"And if I don't?"

"Well we have reservations for 7, so I'll be paying for a dinner that nobody will eat. Unless you want that…"

"Okay! Fine." She threw her hands up in the air, which I thought was funny. I didn't understand it though, why she didn't want me to pay for anything. I mean, if someone offered to pay for all of my stuff I'd jump right on it.

_Well, _I thought, _might as well clean things up. She's probably going to be a while._ I had taken out what I was going to wear earlier and put it in the second bathroom so I could change really fast before we left, so until then I had just about nothing to do. The apartment reeked of energy drinks and looked like it had been attacked by a pack of hermits. Which it had, except for the fact that this pack included two, and they were only _partly_ reclusive.

I looked up at the clock, and it was reading just after 6. Annabeth still had not emerged from the room. It wouldn't be so bad if she would at least say something like "Just give me 10 more minutes!" But no. Not a word. I had gotten changed about 20 minutes ago, and my dress consisted of a shirt, tie, pants, belt, and shoes. I combed my hair, and was ready. I was about to say that we needed to leave soon if we wanted our table, but right when I opened my mouth the door to my room unlocked, and out strode what must have been the most beautiful person I had ever seen.

Her dress, which was long and blue, dragged across the floor and yet still looked elegant; something that someone who was going to a ball would wear. It twisted and turned and pieces of it were bunched up together while other pieces just flowed straight to the ground. The blue itself was something to marvel at; it was like sapphires and the oceans had decided to exchange color scheme and have a baby, which of course resulted in perfection. The dress sparkled, almost like said sapphires were threaded into each and individual fiber, while the piece in her hair did the same. What looked like the same material but even more magnificent because it brought out the blonde curls, that bounced down to her middle back, even more. Her shoes were heels, which easily added four inches to her height putting her basically equal to me. But the most striking part was not her dress, or her hair piece, or her earrings that I had failed to notice earlier, but her make up. Or lack of. Her face had no makeup on it, and yet her eyes, which were still that deep grey, seemed to pop even more.

"Let me know," she said, "when you are ready to stop staring and set to leave." She flashed a smile that seemed to grow more frequent the longer she was here.

"You could have told me that I'd have to wear something to compete with you."

"That was the point, you aren't supposed to be able to compete Seaweed Brain."

I stared at here for a second, not believing what I heard. "You haven't called me that since we talked before you left. If I remember right you almost refused to call me by that."

"The situation allowed it, and besides, I think your game name could use some use."

"Whatever you say, Wise Girl." With that we walked out the door, and into the elevator (which was more difficult with her dress than hailing a taxi was). We sat down in the car, gave the driver the address, and headed off to our wonderful evening of fancy.

A/N Again I'm really sorry that it took forever to update. I don't know how regular updates will be, but it will get done. I've never been good at keeping things on a schedule.


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